The Latest from Big Think

The “major thesis of our lives” is that zero marginal cost technologies like the Internet are allowing systems of control to be distributed, rather than centralized.

A brief description of virtual currency and why it may revolutionize the way we pay for things on the Web.

A conversation with the chairman of Medpedia.

The best way to balance open source developing and growing your own business is to combine the two, Hansson suggests.

Hansson loves Apple’s products, but he calls their decision to restrict programming languages for iPhone apps a “fascist move.”

Cloud computing shouldn’t be an either/or decision. We should definitely make use of the tremendous collaborative possibilities of the Web for some tasks but utilize “the awesome local, graphical power […]

“They have no bearing on what I do,” says Hansson of the software giant. But he admits there is something sad about no longer having an “evil empire” to rally […]

Hansson merged Rails and Merb last year, and, despite initial “squabbles,” the fruits of their cooperation—Rails 3—is on the verge of release.

With applications like Ruby on Rails lowering the bar for creating web applications, some programmers may complain about “the unwashed masses” overrunning their “beautiful, pristine programming communities.” Hansson thinks that […]

“A big part of what makes Ruby so special to work with is just how much expression you can pack into a few lines of code,” says Hansson.

David Heinemeier Hansson was so fed up with PHP and Java that he almost gave up on programming altogether—then he found Ruby and everything changed.

A conversation with the programmer and creator of Ruby on Rails.

Bioethicist Jacob Appel thinks that adding small amounts of lithium to our drinking water could potentially reduce the rate of suicide.

When creating a new business, take your big idea and chop it in half. And then chop it in half again. Rather than loading your product up with lots of […]

At some point, however, the country will have to let the yuan appreciate and allow cash flows in and out of the country.

Cutting down on over-the-counter derivatives trading among banks will reduce the likelihood that if one bank goes under so will the rest.

Buoyed by past deregulation successes, Congress didn’t want Wall Street regulators to interfere before the crash.

Why some of the notorious financial instruments that helped bring down the financial system in 2008 really aren’t so bad.

Investment banks encourage faulty risk management because the risks are “not internalized by the people that are taking them.”

A conversation with the Nobel Prize-winning economist.